The bikes, Stanford said, may be used for a number of reasons, with the most prominent likely being commutes to and from work.

“Our transportation surveys to date have indicated that people are in the kind of five to six kilometre range for their daily trip to and from work. In that case, the bicycle would be something that would easily fill that [commuting] requirement.”

City staff say the shared bikes would likely be available to Londoners for eight months out of the year. However, Stanford added the vendor implementing the bike share program could prolong the bikes’ availability into winter months if they wanted to.

The city would also have to decide between using a docked system, which keeps shared bikes locked in a bike rack between uses, or a dockless system, in which bikes have built-in payment technology and locks that are activated by smartphone apps.